Competitions

At 06.24.36 am this morning we crossed the Equator line, and at this moment we are 00^o45'S 036^o47'W. The outside temperature is 29^oC.


Raymund and Jimmy in first game,
single match Table tennis


Last night we finnished our tournament in Table Tennis. Raymund Montemayor lost the single match against our Navigation Officer James Clyde.




Clyde also participate in our double Table Tennis conntest, together with our Captain, Rune Andreassen. They where both very tense and serious, and they stood together and won. No they are both very proud and a happy team on the bridge.

Champion double Table Tennis
Bridge Team; Clyde and Rune

Our Pushball competition is maybe the competition which make most noice. The participants are so into the game; sceeming, cheering, and shouting. And it's a hectical time for the participants. Elmer presenting the restaurant and Electrician Mats became the proud winners.


Winners; blue team Elmer and Mats (on left side)



Miko; one of the
Welfare organizers - always smiling! 

Please follow our blog. Our next element will be from the Equator Baptism........

Maintenance

We are now on the posistion of 07^o20'N and 040^o29'W, ouside temeperature is 31^oC.

It’s unbelievable for us to understand that some crew doing their maintenance work under cover. Sometimes we wondering if we do not have only passenger and crew on board, but could there also be Pirates?

Pirate Angeles

Our AB’s are brushing the railings and repainting some areas outside on the ship. Many hours are used to do this work, and you should think that they would enjoy being outside and getting tan. But it seems like the AB’s like to “hide” beyond lots of clothing, while their leader Chief Officer do the inspection half naked.

Victor



Inspector Chief Officer Ingar & Pirate Victor - both smiling to the photographer




Scoothing Competion

We have now reached 15^o16’N, 044^o15’W, and the weather is marvelous. Outside temperature is 29^oC.


A lot of maintenance work is going on both inside and outside.

                                                                                                                                       Every night we do have some competition going on, and Thursday night we started with the Air Gun Shooting Competition. Many of the crew participated, but also some of the passengers.

Mariana Von Dobeneck, one of the repeaters on board MV Fram, was ready to participate on the Air Gun Shooting, and she did well! She ended on a 2nd place together with our Receptionist Rona. But our Ship Doctor Carmen Santana, beat them both with 4 more points. Our Hotel Manager Else Kristine came on 3rd place among the girls – but we think she just had big luck…..

Among the guys our Laundryman Hermi was the winner, with a total of 34 points.

Our Assistant Waiter William and our Electrician Mads came on 2nd place with 32 points and our Bartender Erman ended on 3rd place with 30 points.

We congratulate all the participants – and now we are following the push ball final!

Halifax - Buenos Aires

Hello everyone

As you probably have seen, MV Fram arrived Halifax October 8th in the evening.

Early morning Saturday, October 9th, we got the Canadian Public Health inspection. We hoped we where good prepared, and after a couple of hours, we got the result; 100%
Our Hotel Manager was smiling the whole day after this, and it was not only her, we all did!

Saturday afternoon, we left Halifax with 9 passengers on board. Yeah, thats correct, 9 passengers would like to join us all the way to Buenos Aires.

At the moment we have beautiful weather, sunshine, blue sky and 27,5^oC. We are on the latitude 24^oN and 48^oW.
We have 17 days to go till we are in our next port of call, Buenos Aires.

Halifax…at long last

Although everybody is sad that the voyage is now coming to an end…many of us were indeed happy to see the harbour of Halifax at long last in the late afternoon. Relieved that the rolling of the ship finally stopped. At our last sea day, the wind and waves hit us hard, an average 8 on the Beaufort scale, occasionally rising to a 12. The last opportunity to get seasick and many were caught off guard – we had almost forgotten that we are on a ship!

The sea was too rough for lectures, so passengers were invited to meet the expedition staff directly in the cafeteria for any questions. Some of the guests enjoyed sun and wind on the outside decks and others took the chance to play scrabble and other games.

Just before arriving and when the sea smoothed down, all of us gathered in the Observation Lounge for the Farewell Cocktail with Captain Rune Andreassen. The renowned MS Fram choir formed by all members of the crew resulted in a few tears and hundreds of photos.

And now… it is time to pack, to change email addresses, to say good-bye…and to maybe explore our last destination: Halifax by night!

Baddeck – the smurfs are coming!

Rain still exists! After days and days of sunshine and fantastic weather, finally reality reached us this morning. A Beaufort 7 was announced in Anja’s morning greeting and outside it was wet and miserable, with a very poor visibility. But who cares? Everybody agreed that better bad weather here than in so many other stunning places we have visited.

At 11 o’clock the pilot came on board to navigate the ship to Baddeck on Cape Breton Island. Once more, the blue smurfs invaded a little village – although this one is considerably larger than any of the others of our itinerary. A beautiful peaceful resort town with lovely wooden houses. And once more we were lucky: as soon as we came along side the pier, the rain magically stopped.

The most famous inhabitant of the area was Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. We learned more about the life of this great man in the local museum (extremely worth while a visit) and during the guided city walks that some of us joined. Mr Bell actually had a lifelong passion and dedication for teaching the deaf and his career started when doing research on hearing and speech. He married Mabel Hubbard, who was deaf herself. It was a very happy and close couple. A sculpture was recently produced illustrating both of them on a bench, just across the bay of their house, which still belongs to the descendents.
At the end of a day we were rewarded with a very special moment: the sighting of an amazing raptor with white head and tail – the bald eagle, so characteristic of North America!

UNESCO World Heritage Day!

As we arrived in Bonne Bay this morning, we found that another (!!!) sunny day was waiting for us. However, the sea was choppy and it was a quite wet crossing in the polar cirkle boats to the shoreline of Woody Point.

The little village with around 600 inhabitants is beautifully situated close to the famous tablelands of the Gros Morne National Park. Many of us took the opportunity to explore the area on shorter and longer hikes while enjoying the stunning autumn colours. A real highlight were certainly the characteristic red leaves of the maple trees. Gros Morne National Park was designated a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 1987 for its “exceptional natural beauty” and “outstanding examples representing major stages of earth’s history”. One of these examples is represented by the tablelands, which form one of the best and most accessible pieces of exposed earth mantel material in the world.

The park is also home for a variety of animals and at the entrance we were advertised by a signpost that this is bear land. Very exciting! - but the chances to see one…not very promising. Instead, some of us were so lucky and caught the glimpse of a moose! Moose were introduced in 1904, originally two females and males. Today, the population consists of the considerable number of around 100,000 animals, which are causing quite a lot of damage to the vegetation.

A fascinating plant we find in the park is a carnivorous plant. It belongs to the “pitcher plants” and its leaves form cups filled with liquid. Insects are trapped and drown. However, the drowned insects are not consumed by the plant directly, but by the larvae of a special fly, that live inside the cups. The plant in turn lives on the excreta of the larvae – a real symbiosis.

After a morning of exploration, MS Fram sailed along the coastline in the afternoon and passengers could choose between lectures or just relaxing on deck or in the Observation Lounge.

The day was concluded with the famous MS Fram Crew Show presenting many hidden talents on board, including a group of Russian poll dancers.

Whaling Day!

16^th Century, Red Bay – the Capital of Whaling! Well, maybe not the capital, but certainly in those days one of the most important and largest of the at least 16 whaling stations along the seashore of the area.

In the only 300-souls-village we were surprised to find 3 beautifully set up exhibitions on whales and whaling. The skeleton of a big bowhead whale was on display and a ‘chalupa’, an old rowing boat used to hunt these big beasts. It was only a little longer than the mandibles of the whale lying next to it for a scale reference. All these items, together with the remains of four galleons, were found on the seafloor at Red Bay by underwater archaeologists.

Hard to believe that until the 1970s, nobody knew about all this history. Only then, British researcher Selma Barkham started to investigate in the Basque region of southern France and northern Spain old records of different types. She revealed the large-scale whale fishery carried out by the Basques in the 16^th century in Canada (after they had exterminated the local right whale population in the Bay of Biscay) and it was only then that the different artefacts were discovered in Red Bay. Not only under water, but also a large cemetery of approximately 140 whalers was found on Saddle Island. Today, Red Bay’s collection is thought to be the best of its kind in the world.

Not surprisingly, many of us spent the day investigating the different museums. But the nice weather (again!) also invited for a hike on Saddle Island to which a shuttle service with the polar circle boats was set up. Others went on an even longer walk to up to Tracy Hill to have a wonderful view and some went on an excursion to Point Amour.

Leif the Lucky… again!

Another Viking day! In the morning we arrived in St. Anthony, a village with 3100 inhabitants on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Newfoundland, known for storms and rain, greeted us with bright sunshine and blue sky - so not only Leif is lucky, but we are, too! But the wind – yes! – it was present all day.

On the pier, Kol the Viking was waiting for us to lead us on the excursion to L’Anse aux Meadows, a 1000 year old settlement of the Norsemen – presumably founded by Leif himself. It was a 45-minute bus ride (on local school busses) through stunning Indian summer scenery (boreal forest in green and yellow with some beautiful ponds) to reach this famous place, today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. L'Anse aux Meadows was discovered in 1960 and since then it is proven that it was definitely not Columbus who was the first European to set foot on the new continent! (despite our school books…).

We strolled along the remains of the old houses (some grass mounds in the landscape) and a large part of our visit was dedicated to see several reconstructions of those Viking buildings, including a church. It was great to seek refuge from the cold wind inside the houses where Norsemen and -women in traditional outfits were weaving or knitting next to warm fires and very happy to answer all our questions. Also a real Viking boat replica was on display with which in 1998 some audacious adventurers (or shall we call them crazy) had crossed from Greenland to Canada in 86 days.

In the afternoon, many took the opportunity to go for a walk to Fishing Point, a nice viewpoint with a lighthouse. We had the chance to look at some typical plants like cranberries, crowberries, arctic blueberries, the Lapland cornus and also the balsam fir, here in dwarf form due to the harsh weather conditions.

A successful first day in Canada and we are looking forward to more!

Labrador Sea Day

Bridge-tours were the program of this morning. Everybody got the chance to visit Captain Rune Andreassen and to learn more about the ship. There is the paper sea chart where the route is firstly established and then the information is transferred to a computer. The track pilot (if switched on) will set the ship on that pre-established course, although due to the action of waves and wind the real course does certainly vary. But GPS and other instruments will take care of that.

The Captain also explained about our stabilizers, which are 4 meter long “wings” with flaps that come out of each side of the vessel. They help to reduce the rolling, however, nothing can be done against the pitching. So we were lucky that the movement of today was not too bad, although we definitely had more wind than yesterday. Or is it that we all have got our sea-legs by now?

The sky cleared up during the day and the blue water with the white caps shining in the sun gave us the real ‘ocean feeling’.

Birds were again following the ship and different species could be identified: the already mentioned fulmars (again very numerous!), several flocks of kittiwakes, glaucous gulls, greater and sooty shearwaters, little auks, pomarine skuas (very special!) and even a raptor (probably a peregrine falcon) was around. Not to forget our blind passenger from Greenland, a young snow bunting on deck 7.

The sea was too rough for a good whale watching, however, some of us were lucky enough to spot small groups of pilot whales.

Otherwise, the day was used again for relaxing, attending lectures, films or a question-and-answer session with the expedition team. Some of the guests tried out the Jacuzzis and others worked out in the fitness room.

In the evening another question round took place – this time with the Captain, the Chief Engineer and the Hotel Manager to talk about topics related to Fram.

Good-bye Kalaallit Nunaat

Kalaallit Nunaat meaning "land of the Greenlanders” as the locals call their country, lies far behind us now. Two days at sea separate us from Canada, but as the weather and wave conditions are really good, these two days are welcome in order to relax and take in all the many impressions and experiences we have had so long. While letting the eyes lazily glide over the ocean, with our inner eyes we let once more pass by the images of ice, glaciers, mountains, friendly people in colourful costumes and of course some Viking ruins.

And for those not in the relaxing mood, there was again a full program of different talks to keep everybody busy. Lectures covered waves and whales, but also birds, climate, photography and life in modern Greenland.

In the afternoon passengers and staff alike were magically attracted to the Observation Lounge, from where a tempting scent of fresh waffles was spreading around the whole ship.

With cream, jam or the Norwegian brown cheese they were simply delicious.

Another sport of the day was trying to take pictures of the birds that accompanied Fram all day long. Most of them were fulmars, relatives of the mighty albatrosses in the southern hemisphere. Both belong to the tubenoses and are truly marine creatures. They only return to land for breeding while spending the rest of their lives at the ocean. Fulmars come in two morphs: one form is totally dark grey, whereas the other has a snowy white body and grey upper wings. The dark morph can only be found in the high north, and therefore we were delighted to see some of them within the flocks of the more common white form. Occasionally, the birds came so close to the ship, that we could almost touch them (yes!). Suddenly, the big telemetry lens were useless and wide-angle lens became much more appropriate to take good shots!

Well, tomorrow is another day and maybe a chance to try once more our luck.

The good (?) old Viking times

Does Greenland have any bad weather at all?! – we ask ourselves. Another day full of bright sunshine and blue sky lies behind us. Another day full of highlights with more landings, more Viking remains, more scenery. 

However, when the alarm clock rang this morning the first reaction was an “oh no!” as it was still dark outside and very early. But yes, a tough program was waiting for us and the first landing started at 7.30. Hvalsey was the destination and once awake, everybody was delighted to presence a spectacular sunrise.

When we arrived, the ruins of the Vikings were still in the shadow, but as time passed by, we could almost see how the first sunrays began to illuminate the old buildings. Hvalsey offers the best preserved Viking church and it was here that the last documented wedding took place, back in 1408. It is also the last written record of the Norsemen before they disappeared from Greenland.

Around 9 o’clock we lifted the anchor again to reach out for our next landing place: Qassiarsuk. It was an amazing sail through the Tunulliarfik Fjord (Eriksfjord) with new snow on the peaks at the starboard side. Despite the sunshine, there is no doubt that winter is approaching – we could clearly see the sea starting to freeze. In Qassiarsuk, the beaches were covered with thin little ice plates and in some parts there was still frost even in the afternoon.

Qassiarsuk is an important historical place as it was here that Erik the Red, the first Viking to settle in Greenland, established his farm around 1000 years ago. Ruins of the old church and other buildings reminded us of those times, and despite the Vikings have gone long ago, still today the area is very green (for the first time we understand the word Green-land!) and used for sheep farming.

Local guides gave us a tour through the 40-souls village. At the end, by the replica of the Norsemen’s church and a longhouse, Tjorhilde, Erik the Red’s wife, was waiting for us. Ok – not she in person of course - but she did look very authentic! It was Edda from Iceland who in a dramatic one-woman-show made history become alive. We could imagine it all: violence, murder, passion and the strong will to colonize this new country.

And now we will follow Leif the Lucky (whose monument watches over the settlement) on his explorations that took him even farther…to the west…and to find another continent – today called North America!